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EU vaccines
© APA / AFP
The EU ambassador in Brussels has postponed the dispute over the distribution of ten million initial doses of Biontech / Pfizer vaccines for the second quarter. A proposal from the Portuguese Presidency of the EU, according to which three million doses should be used to compensate for solidarity in favor of the EU states Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which have been delayed on the distribution of vaccines, it is still controversial, according to diplomats.
The Federal Chancellery said on Wednesday: “It is good that the inequality in the distribution of vaccines is resolved with the solidarity mechanism. There was an initial exchange today. Some countries are asking for more solidarity. Tomorrow the talks between the EU will be Ambassadors continued.” .
The Federal Chancellery on Tuesday rejected a report from the online portal “Politico”, according to which Austria threatened to block the purchase of an additional 100 million doses of vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer if it does not receive a larger share of the vaccine delivery. The ten million doses of vaccines advanced to the second quarter are part of the contract for the 100 million doses.
According to diplomats, a senior representative of the EU Commission also confirmed on Wednesday in the steering committee responsible for the ordering process that the EU order option for Biontech / Pfizer’s 100 million cans was “activated”. No one blocked this option, said the representative of the EU Commission. Therefore, the EU Commission informed Pfizer of the activation.
However, the ordering process could only be completed if EU states agree to the distribution of the 10 million doses of vaccines brought forward from the fourth to the second quarter, he said in council circles. According to reports, in case of no agreement between the EU ambassadors, the dossier would be returned to the vaccine steering committee, and then the 100 million doses would be distributed according to the population code of the EU countries without solidarity. mechanism.
“Politico” also wrote in his newsletter on Wednesday that, according to the EU Council’s legal service assessment, individual EU states could not block the order for new vaccines at all. Therefore, the only thing that requires unanimity would be a distribution scheme that deviates from the population key.
Under the Portuguese proposal, Austria would not receive any additional vaccines. Under the proposal, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia, as well as the Czech Republic, would benefit from the solidarity quota of three million cans. Austria would be assigned a total of 139,170 doses of vaccine. Based on the population key, this corresponds to Austria’s share of the remaining seven million Biontech / Pfizer cans. The Federal Chancellery said in the run-up to the meeting that the initial Portuguese proposal was “a foundation on which to build on in future negotiations at the EU ambassador level.”
At last week’s EU summit, Austria, along with the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Latvia, complained about the uneven distribution of vaccines in the EU. Not all EU countries had bought the amounts to which they were entitled based on their population.
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